Why Book a Disney Cruise Line Future Cruise or Placeholder? How to Save Money!!
Most people that sail Disney Cruise Line want to sail again. A Future Cruise Booking or Placeholder made on the ship while sailing is the best way to save money on a Disney Cruise!
Simply put a Placeholder is a deposit on a future cruise that you make while on your current cruise. You have 24 months from the date you make that $250 deposit to sail. An example is if you book a Placeholder while on the ship March 30th, 2025 you have until March 29th, 2027, to board using that Placeholder Deposit. You can also just book a Future Cruise that is available before then while on the ship as well. The $250 deposit made for a Placeholder is used towards the original deposit when booking the final chosen cruise!
How does this save you money? Disney gives you a 10%
discount for Booking a Future Cruise or a Placeholder while on the ship! If you
wish to save another 5% or more you can get discounted Disney Gift Cards at
places like Target, Sam’s Club, CostCo or even some EBates stores. Follow the
Disney Gift Card rules to combine them and use them to pay for the cruise! Combining
them together can save you 15% or more! This adds up quickly!
If you book a cruise that costs $3,500 and use a Future
Cruise or Placeholder for it that is a savings of $350! If you make that Future
Cruise or Placeholder payment with Discounted Disney Gift Cards at 5% off that
is $525 saved! That $3,500 cruise ended up costing $2,975! It is always worth
looking into.
How to combine and use Disney Gift Cards:
- Go to DisneyGiftCard.com and log in using your Disney log in.
- Add 2 – 6 cards.
- Transfer the funds from all cards onto just one card. You can dispose of the empty cards.
- Maximum allowed to be on 1 card is $1,000.
- Use this card to make payments for your Disney Vacation (parks or cruise).
- Only use this card to the $1,000 max.
- If the total payments are over $1,000 use multiple cards.
- SAVE the cards you used to make payments. If money is refunded it will go back onto these cards so you may need them later!
Here are some rules about Placeholders/Future Cruise Bookings
made on the ship.
1. Placeholders must be used within 24 months of
booking it on the ship.
2. If you wish to transfer your Future Cruise or
Placeholder booking to a Travel Agent it must be done within 30 days of booking
it!
- If booked on March 29th, 2025 you have until April 25th, 2025 to transfer it to your favorite Travel Agent. The sooner you do it the better! If you wait until the 30th day DCL may not have enough time to transfer it.
- You cannot transfer a Future Cruise Booking that is Paid in Full.
- You cannot transfer a Placeholder/Future Cruise Booking from one agent/agency to another without just cause. This is nearly impossible to do because of Disney’s policies designed to stop agencies from taking clients from each other. You cannot just decide to change agencies at whim.
- Exceptions:
- If you agent/agency changes pricing policies and now charges a fee.
- If the agency is not working in your favor. They are grossly mishandling your reservation.
- Be ready to have documentation of this.
- If you agent/agency no longer wishes to service your reservation.
- The agency you were working with informs you they are no longer in business and transfers the booking back to you.
- Be aware that, for legal reasons, both the old and new agencies will need to be required to sign forms from DCL documenting the fact both agencies agree to the transfer.